World War III, also known as the Great War of 2009, or by its PEACE code name (for the American theatre) Operation PIG MAC™, was the third global conflict in the New World, between PEACE GC and the ATLANTIS successor alliances of EDEN and Fortis. It began on July 13th, 2009 when France invaded Canada. Most of the fighting took place within North America, specifically within the United States and Canada, however there was also fighting in Scandinavia and Spain. The war ended on November 19, 2009 with the official dissolution of PEACE. The result is debatable given that PEACE lost most of the territories it completely or partially conquered due to either peace treaties or successful resistance efforts by the occupied nations; however in general the PEACE nations emerged without losing any of the land they held before the war. The end of this war, marked by the dissolution of PEACE, set the stage for World War IV.

Background

On July 10th, 2009, Hungary attacked Scotland, United Kingdom and eventually conquered the region as part of a training war between the two countries. The move was widely viewed among former ATLANTIS countries to precipitate a Hungarian invasion of Canada, or possibly Norway. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom himself promised that Scotland would not be used by Hungary toward an invasion of Canada [1].

On July 12th, 2009, Indonesia attacked Kyushu, Japan and the Japanese President immediately retreated, giving Indonesia a border with the United States.

Aside from these two borders, Canada and the United States also border PEACE countries France, Russia, Portugal, and Mexico, with the former three having activated MPPs against Canada and USA from previous conflicts.

France vs Canada

France attacked Nova Scotia, Canada using an already open war and old MPP's open from Operation French Toast on July 13th, 2009, opening the invasion of North America. France and its allies managed to bring the wall in Nova Scotia down to -450,000, though tanking from Canada and its allies raised the wall back into no mans land with 50,000. Ultimately though France conquered Nova Scotia in what became one of the largest battles in Erepublik's history [146] and moved on swiftly toward Prince Edward Island, which was easily conquered due to the lack of a defense system, its small population and because it was not strategically important.

Over the next few days a quick procession of provinces and territories fell to France, including Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunavut (in that order). France also region swapped Brittany with the United Kingdom, then did the same to Nova Scotia in order to block any counter attacks (The US and Canada had no open wars with the UK, who had just recently switched sides). In the next phase of the war France attacked Manitoba, yet the region was retreated by Canadian forces who then attacked Russian occupied regions in the US while the Americans attacked French occupied Manitoba, all in an attempt to regain the initiative of the war. The tactic was reversed, with Russia retreated the regions Canada attacked and France retreating Manitoba, turning instead to the vital region of Quebec.

Quebec was soon lost, as well as PEI which had recently been liberated in a Resistance War (a rare victory for Canada in the early stages of the war). Canada regained the initiative in the war with France when Spain attacked regions in France to put a stop to the onslaught. Canada used this time to retake several states in the US that Russia had occupied and to launch several attacks on French occupied Canada, which most failed. It didn't last long though since Spain was blocked from attacking France by Brazil, and France went on the offensive again.

By July 31st, 22 days after the initial invasion of Canada, France was now in control of a majority of Canada. It had conquered the Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, it had conquered the territories of Nunavut , Northwest Territories and the Yukon as well as a good portion of Western Canada, including Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (the latter having been a fortress province with a Q5 Defence system and a Q5 hospital with a significant number of Canadians living there at the time), as well as the golden prize many French players coveted, Francophone Quebec which they claimed for real life historical reasons, which left only British Columbia and Ontario (the main bastion and fortress of Canada) for the French to attack. After almost a month of constant battle a lull in the fighting occurred, during which France region swapped its Canadian possessions to its PEACE allies.

After a series of complicated region swaps, France had ceded a large portion of Canada to the United Kingdom, who while allied with PEACE, had open wars with them from previous conflicts and was able to attack and retreat most of its allies. Thus it came to be that Hungary came to control Nunavut, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, using its control of Scotland as a spring into Canada. Iran took control of Yukon and the Northwest Territories, while the UK itself was left with PEI, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and after France had used it to invade British Columbia, Alberta.

With BC occupied, that left Ontario as the last region under Canadian control. The Canadian government had been moving Canadians to Ontario for the better part of a week in anticipation of the final battle, reaching almost a population of 3000 and adding drastically to the defensive wall. The final region swap happened on August 5th, 2009, when France handed Nova Scotia over to the United Kingdom, and the following day France attacked Ontario from Quebec. The battle was fierce and one of the longest in the history of eRepublik, not the mention the biggest at the time. The battle was 5 hours and 58 minutes into overtime as Canadian and allies forces battled with PEACE to push the wall into no mans land or into the underground. Eventually French and PEACE forces got the upper hand and Canada was wiped off the map.

Though it would not be for long, and it would prove to have some hidden benefits for EDEN/USA in the long run.

Russian invasion of North America

On July 14th, 2009, the day after the French attack on Nova Scotia, Russia began its invasion of the United States of America with an attack on Alaska, possible because of an open war dating back several months from the USA-Russia War, and was backed up by a plethora of activated alliances. The attack failed though, meaning Russia would have to wait 24 hours before it could launch another attack. When the Russians attacked again on the 16th they were successful, and immediately attacked the continental United States in Washington, which was also occupied by Russian forces.

When Russia attempted to invade Idaho, the US retreated. This was a ploy to regain initiative of the war, and at the same time Canada had retreated Manitoba which was being attacked by France. The United States attacked French occupied Manitoba while Canada attacked Russian occupied Alaska and Washington. Using their own tactic against them though, Russia retreated from the battles in Alaska and Washington (while France retreated from the attack in Manitoba). With regained initiative, Russia attacked several US states at once to stop the US from using the same ploy again. Russia conquered Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, though an attack on Canadian controlled Alaska failed. A majority of these states fell due to American forces being redirected to fight in Canada, who had fewer territories than the US which were much more valuable than those being conquered by Russia.

Russia was stopped from unleashing further attacks into the United States once more on the 22nd of July when North Korea and Norway, allies of Canada and America, attacked Far Eastern Russia and Northern Russia respectively. This allowed the US to counter attack, resulting in the US retaking Utah, Oregon, Nevada, and Wyoming and Canada to take Idaho from Russia. On July 26th, 2009, Indonesia attacked Hawaii, once more giving Russia the initiative of the war. The US was now in deep trouble. All of North Korea was being conquered by Russia, denying them the ability to block Russia, and the US was now fighting on three fronts (Russia launching attacks into the Midwest and outwards, Indonesia attacking the West coast and Portugal now attacking the East coast.) By the end of the first month of the war, Russia controlled Montana, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Minnesota and unfortunately for the Americans, Kansas, which had had a Q5 defense system, Q5 hospital and high population.

Eventually, Russia and its PEACE allies controlled all but one US state: Florida. Florida, if attacked, had the potential to be the biggest battle in eRepublik history. It had a Q5 DS and a Q5 Hospital, and housed all of America's refugees, numbering at 10,000 people to a singular region, creating the largest defensive wall ever seen (over 1,000,000 damage points). The complete and total destruction of the US wasn't in PEACE's strategic interests, as it would erase their active wars with the US and allow the Americans to just get their regions back one by one, just like what was happening in Canada and Spain. Plus they could allow the Americans to rot in Florida, their economy utterly destroyed. They would need to sign a Non-Aggression Pact (NAP) with the US on their terms though stating that the US could not attack them and would have to pay hefty amounts of gold for the return of their regions. This idea was agreed upon by all party nations, except Russia, who desired complete domination of the United States.

The ensuing split between PEACE nations that saw Indonesia sign an independent peace treaty with the US proved to be fatal to them though, as America now had initiative in the war and unleashed an onslaught on Indonesia and Portugal occupied states. Russia rushed to attack the newly freed American regions in order to block the attacks on Indonesia and Portugal, though due to a bug known as the 'Self Attack Bug' that messed with the war system, the admins suspended the war between the two countries. After the bug was sorted out, Russia had no opportunity to attack the US. Canada, which had freed a majority of its provinces, was now using 'blocking attacks' to deny Russia the option of attacking. The war now appeared to be in the favor of America, despite Russian efforts to free American states bordering Canadian provinces to escape the blocking attacks. Russia was forced to sit back and watch as Indonesia was pushed farther and farther westward until September 6th when it was pushed out of America all together. Portugal had also signed an independent peace treaty with the US and had returned all of its occupied regions to the US.

Immediately after the defeat of Indonesia, the US unleashed wave upon wave of attacks upon Russia. Even the efforts of the relatively small country of Colombia to block the US from attacking failed, as the US would retreat from the regions under attack from Colombia and press on with more attacks on Russian occupied states. On September 10th it was do or die for Russia, as all of their remaining Americans territories were under attack at once. Tanking operations in New Jersey squeaked our a win for Russia, and they were allowed to once more go on the offensive, forcing the US to deal with a double pronged attack from both Russia and Colombia.

Signs pointed to a major PEACE offensive at that point. The Russian President had declared his intent to take the fortress region of Florida, which would cost over 2,000 gold alone just to attack, not to mention the serious tanking that would need to be done by PEACE in order to take down the 1,000,000 wall. PEACE was preparing operations elsewhere as well against Canada, Croatia and Greece. The plans fell apart though when Colombia failed to attack the US state of Nebraska, losing initiative in the war with the US. At the same time, Norway, in cahoots with Sweden and Finland, attacked Northern Russia, blocking them from attacking the US. America had the initiative once more in the war versus Russia, and this time it was permanent. Attempts by France to use blocking attacks against the US were only retreated, and were quickly stopped as France would soon have a border with Canada who in turn could block attack France. (France was evicted quickly after that).

Admitting defeat in the war, Russia put up no hard resistance against the attack on their final region in North America, New Jersey, instead preferring to take out their frustrations on Scandinavia for their assistance of the United States.

Indonesia vs USA

On July 11th, 2009, two days before the invasion of North America began and after several threats directed at Japan from Indonesia, Indonesia began to region swap with Japan so that Indonesia held the region of Kyushu, bordering the American state of Hawaii. Indonesia also attacked a Chinese region in order to open war with the US, who had an alliance with China at the time. Despite initial fears of Indonesia attacking the west coast of the continental United States, the invasion of North America began with PEACE attacks on Nova Scotia and Alaska instead. It would not be until several days later, July 24th when the war was already in full gear between the US, Canada, France and Russia that Indonesia opened its attack on Hawaii, the same day Portugal attacked Georgia.

On paper Indonesia was outnumbered. The US had never attacked Indonesian territory so had never activated their alliances, unlike the cases with Russia, France and Portugal. This meant that Indonesia was going up against the US alone, fighting against at least ten other countries. However, Indonesia was the oldest and one of the strongest empires in the game at the time with a significant strength level and large population (not to mention their fearsome tanks). They were able to win the battle in Hawaii while the US and its allies tried to hold off multiple assaults in their territory. Their next win two days later in California was more significant. California had a Q5 Defense System and a Q4 Hospital, was one of America's high resource regions and was populated by about 10% of America's work force. In only a few weeks time, Indonesia had blazed a trail of destruction through the south of the United States, conquering New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, Mississippi and another large prize, Texas. In early August, Indonesia had reached Russian and Portuguese territory, while the US was left to a few states, Florida and a few in New England.

The PEACE Global Community attack came to a halt as they debated what to do next. Indonesia, along with most of PEACE, supported ending hostilities and signing a NAP with the US favorable to PEACE terms, mainly because the gold and power needed to take Florida just wasn't there. All participating nations agreed, including the US, except for Russia, who balked at the 300 gold price tag put on the return of regions to the US, claiming it was not enough. Russia continued its attack on the New England states, wishing to conquer all of it before any treaty was signed. The Indonesian president decided to act alone and signed an independent peace treaty with the US to end hostilities, just as the last New England state, Maine, fell to Russia. The peace treaty passed the US congress and the Indonesian one by a 13-6 vote in favor. However, due to confusion over game mechanics, Indonesia only closed its open war with the US with Portugal (the war module counts opened MPP's as their own wars). Thus Portugal lost an ally in its war and the US was able to still able to attack Indonesian territory.

With regained initiative, American and EDEN forces were able to liberate Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana from Indonesia, but the newly liberated regions shared borders with Russian owned regions who promptly attacked. Due to a bug in the game which caused trouble with the war module, the war between Russia and the US was suspended, allowing the US to retake New Mexico, Mississippi, Arizona and Nevada. Despite war being reinstated between Russia and the US, Russia was actively being blocked by Canada from attacking the US. Portugal as well had signed an independent peace treaty with the US and had returned all its occupied territories.

California had become an Indonesian stronghold within America, with a large transplanted Indonesian population and both a Q5 hospital and defense system. If Indonesia wasn't able to defend California, it would certainly lose the war. Many PEACEkeepers from allied countries arrived in Indonesia to help defend California. The battle was hard fought, finally with Indonesia coming out victorious after heavy tanking operations. Indonesia was unable to reconquer the US though. Without Portugal and Russia distracting the US, Indonesia couldn't win any states alone. So instead a stalemate ensured, where Indonesia kept up constant attacks on the states of Nevada and Arizona to stop the US from attacking California again. For the first three days of September no land was conquered, as Indonesia and Canada continued to block the US and Russia respectively. The US hit a stroke of good luck when the Indonesian president was banned for obtaining funds illegally in the game, leading to Indonesia lapsing on its routine blocking attacks. Indonesia lost in Arizona, allowing the US to attack and conquer California, and the next day Hawaii, pushing Indonesia out of the war.

Portugal vs USA

Portugal, like Russia and France, had an open war with the United States from a previous conflict dating back to January of 2009. However, like Indonesia, they did not open hostilities in the war. In fact, Portugal signed a peace treaty with Spain, a long time adversary, during the beginning of the Russian and French invasions of North America, leading some to speculate in EDEN media that Portugal would choose to remain neutral in the conflict. However, on July 25th, 2009, on the same day Indonesia attacked Hawaii, Portugal attacked Georgia. As described above, the United States was not adequately prepared to deal with a three front war against Portugal, Russia and Indonesia, and with the backing of its numerous activated alliances, Portugal was able to conquer Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, the District of Columbia (a symbolic blow to the US, as this is where the US capital in real life is located), Arkansas, Maryland, Alabama, North Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and South Carolina.

Portugal was in favor of signing a NAP with the United States, though the proposed plan was scrapped due to Russian objections. Due to the lack of PEACE attacks during the peace negotiations, the US took advantage of the situation and attacked Portugal in Alabama, as well as Indonesia. Portugal was able to hold off two more attacks, but things turned for the worse for them when Indonesia, by accident, signed a peace treaty with the US that canceled out their alliance. The US was now pushing into Indonesian territory while Russia was being blocked by Canada and Portugal by the US. Knowing that the tides of the war were changing, the Portuguese and American governments signed a NAP that asked for 500 gold and a peace treaty (much lighter then the original proposal that Russia rejected, which asked for 200 gold from each medium resource region and 300 gold for high resource regions). In a period of three days, ending on August 30th, Portugal returned all of its conquered territories to the US.

Hungarian Occupation of North America

Due to conflicts raging in Europe, Hungary was able to achieve a border with Newfoundland, Canada from Scotland, United Kingdom. While many saw this as a step towards a Hungarian attack on Canada, the actual invasion of Canada was undertaken by France, on July 13th, 2009. As described above, Canada was conquered and its provinces divided amongst France, the UK, Iran and Hungary, with Hungary gaining Nunavut, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as prizes. Hungary also conquered Idaho, Montana, Washington and Alaska, which had been conquered by Canada against Russia. Canada was able to put itself back on the map with a series of resistance war wins against the United Kingdom, and proceeded to attack Hungarian controlled Provinces repeatedly to block them from attacking anyone. That was the fate Hungary endured throughout the entirety of the war, blocked from attacking by Canada, the USA and Sweden (who would occasionally attack Hungarian controlled Denmark), until all of Hungary's allies had been defeated and it alone was left in control of pieces of Canada and the US.

A stalemate began at this point. Hungary wouldn't dare attack Canada and the US, triggering their alliances and making it easy for them to reconquer their territory, but Canadian and American forces couldn't beat Hungary, the world's strongest superpower, alone, even when attacking at the same time. The war raged on elsewhere between EDEN and PEACE, and things appeared to be settling with Hungarian occupation of these provinces and states looking to be temporarily tolerated by the two North American countries.

Several attempts were made to liberate Hungarian held regions. Two days after the Russian defeat at New Jersey (making Hungary the only PEACE power on the continent) the US attacked Hungarian occupied Manitoba, coinciding with a Canadian distraction attack at Hungarian occupied Washington. Hungary was able to halt the offensives of both countries, a sign that they wouldn't be expelled from the continent anytime soon. This would be the state of the conflict in North America for most of October that year. America and Canada launched several offensives over the weeks but were always beaten. Hungary's first defeat came on October 21st, when the US, backed by many EDEN forces, was able to conquer Manitoba[147]. This was the largest battle of its time, and is still today listed (at the time of writing this) in the top ten battles of eRepublik, with over 8,000,000 damage points being dealt[148]. Hungary had built up a native population here and built a hospital and defence system as well to defend it.

Hungary then voluntarily returned all of its occupied regions except their remaining two fortress regions, Alaska and Nunavut, both heavily populated by Hungarians with invested infrastructure. The point of this was to force the US and Canada to attack regions which cost a lot of gold to do so. The momentum was with the American war machine though who managed to steamroll their way into Nunavut on the 25th of October with less resistance from the Hungarians, marking the total liberation of Canada from PEACE control since they were invaded in July of that year. The fate of the war at that point was inevitable. America attacked Alaska on October the 29th, though many Hungarians had already fled and returned to their motherland. Alaska was occupied by American forces, their first region to be lost in the war. With the restoration of the continent to its proper owners, the Great War of 2009 came to a close, though the conflict between EDEN and PEACE still raged globally.

Secondary Fronts

During the course of these events, numerous attacks and resistance wars were carried out in order to distract important countries already participating in other battles.

France vs. Spain

Spain and France, former allies in the Mediterranean Alliance, had been at war with one another since Operation French Toast, and had settled into a cold war after its end. When in July 2009 France attacked Canada, an ally of Spain and both former members of ATLANTIS, it was not long until Spain threw itself into the fray on Canada's side. 10 days after the initial invasion of Canada, on July 23 Spain attacked France in Languedoc-Roussillon in an attempt to stop France's wave of victories in North America. This marked the defenders first major counter-attack, as concurrently North Korea and Norway attacked Russia, allowing both Canada and the United States to regain initiative in the war.

The French advance through Northern Spain to take Spain's high iron region, Asturias

France and her allies were able to stave off further attacks on Aquitaine and Rhone Alps, and even re-conquered Languedoc. Lanquedoc was conquered by the Spanish once more several days later, allowing Spain to open several attacks into the French heartland. Spain was only put to a stop when Brazil attacked Spain at the Canary Islands. At this time it became apparent to the PEACE leadership that Spain had to be dealt with, though it would have to wait until France had finished in Canada. At the beginning of August, after defeating the Canadians in their last province of Ontario and securing all their original territories from the Spanish, France struck at Spain in Navarra[149]. From there French forces made a bee line movement through Basque Country and Cantabria for the high iron region of Asturias, the main crux in the Spanish war economy. Its capture dealt a blow not only to Spain, but her many allies as it was their only reliable source of weapons. Around the same time the Spanish treasury, one of the largest in the New World, was shifted to a company that was for sale and subsequently bought by PEACE. These incidents gave a bleak outlook for Spain.

By the end of August France had mopped up the rest of Spanish resistance, conquering Madrid, their final region, on the 20th. This gave PEACE complete dominance of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as almost all of Western Europe, the exception being the three Scandinavian nations.

PEACE Internal Conflicts

Internal conflicts are arrangements made within an alliance to swap regions for strategic purposes.

Hungary vs United Kingdom

World War III began as a "training war" between Hungary and the United Kingdom, and Indonesia and Japan. The two larger nations attacked and occupied provinces in the two smaller nations. These strategic moves were viewed in North America as the opening moves of a new war, despite the claims of neutrality and "training wars" by those nations involved.

Japan vs Indonesia

The Japanese region of Kyushu was taken by the Indonesians for a border into the United States. The region was acquired on the 11th of July, 2009 and returned 17 days later after the Indonesians had established a foothold in North America, in particular California.

United Kingdom vs France

The war between the United Kingdom and France was a war of convenience. The United States could not attack the United Kingdom without an expensive declaration of war, meaning that the regions the United Kingdom taken from France were safe from attacks by the United States and Canada.

Overall the outcome of the war was an EDEN triumph though, as the second half of the war saw sustained victories for their side against PEACE. All the aforementioned nations were defeated, except for Portugal who signed a peace treaty with the United Sates (see Portugal Vs. USA). Spain and Canada led successful resistance wars in their nations that saw the complete defeat of French forces and the restoration of their countries, a contributing factor to the steep French population decrease. Iran and Indonesia spent almost their entire treasuries defending their regions in North America but were ultimately unsuccessful. PEACE had spent much gold building infrastructure in their occupied territories to stave off any counter attacks, only to have them demolished by EDEN forces. Indonesians, Iranians and Hungarians who moved to these regions by the hundreds to bolster their defenses, as well as new players who started off in these controlled territories, were stuck behind enemy lines, and hundreds stayed there after wards and died off due to frustration or not understanding the game properly yet.

Indonesia particularly suffered an exodus of players who felt cheated by the game and frustrated by their losses in North America as well as their continued loses in Asia against EDEN forces, declining from a population of 15,000 to just under 8,000 in a few weeks.

The war served to unify the former nations of ATLANTIS who had broken into two different alliances after the Swedish and Polish invasion of Germany, who formed under the new EDEN alliance. The Eden Mobile Corps became a highly efficient and devastating tanking unit, while the PEACE equivalent, the Peace Keepers, never really got off the ground.

PEACE Global Community suffered greatly from the war, and only a month after the war ended, member states began to leave the alliance until it became defunct and was replaced by the smaller PHOENIX alliance while the other former members of PEACE pursued different foreign policies. This fracture allowed EDEN to strike back at their enemies eventually, with Iran, Hungary and Indonesia suffering loses in Asia against the United States and France and Germany being occupied by Spain and Poland respectively.